child labor laws

Cultural  

1. Laws passed over many decades, beginning in the 1830s, by state and federal governments, forbidding the employment of children and young teenagers, except at certain carefully specified jobs. Child labor was regularly condemned in the nineteenth century by reformers and authors (see David Copperfield and Oliver Twist), but many businesses insisted that the Constitution protected their liberty to hire workers of any age. In several cases in the early twentieth century, the Supreme Court agreed, declaring federal child labor laws unconstitutional. Eventually, in the late 1930s, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act was upheld by the Court. This law greatly restricts the employment of children under eighteen in manufacturing jobs.

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Example Sentences

Department of Labor found that 11 Crumbl locations violated child labor laws.

From Salon • Jan. 1, 2025

He also pointed to New York Times reporting that federal officials repeatedly ignored warnings that migrant children were increasingly working in slaughterhouses, factories and on roofs, in violation of child labor laws.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2024

It was a violation of child labor laws for him to work instead of going to school, but he had to contribute to the rent, and felt pressure to support his parents back home.

From New York Times • Dec. 28, 2023

It would also require the Labor Department to compile a list of companies ineligible for federal contracts based on "serious, repeated, or pervasive violations of child labor laws."

From Reuters • Oct. 26, 2023

All children should have school privileges.—All these facts are freely admitted, wherever attention is called to them, but we still have truant officers, and child labor laws.

From The Vitalized School by Pearson, Francis B.